Is it possible, in theory, for electric vehicles to match the utility of my Jeep Grand Cherokee. By matching the utility, I mean:
Same size, weight, cargo capacity, off road and foul weather capability.
Same or less operating cost (Base Price, Gasoline, Electricity, Batteries, Maintenance, etc) over 250,000 miles.
Same range, including having the heat or A/C on and normal driving. Since I only drive 500 miles or so in a day, a 600 mile range without an overnight deep charge would be acceptable, as would a single 10 minute stop along the way.
I understand this is impossible now, but given improvements in battery technology is this probable in the future? Or are there fundamental limits in physics?
I do know about the specs of the Tesla, but it’s way smaller and way more expensive than I’d ever buy, so I guess I’m asking if it’s theoretically possible for battery technology to improve to replace my gasoline Jeep without increasing the cost or reducing the utility
Not yet, but as the technology improves we’ll see. Although re: #2, the operating costs have thus far been seen to be vastly lower than a normal car. Even aside from fuel savings (which depends on your electric rate), an electric car doesn’t require oil changes, tune-ups, belts, hoses, etc, and because of regenerative braking they go much longer between brake jobs. The only unknown is the batteries, but in the decade or so of experience we have now with hybrids, it appears that batteries generally last the life of the vehicle.
Once the technology matures, it should be great for trucks and SUVs. Electric motors produce peak torque essentially from 0 RPM, which will be awesome for towing and hauling. Another pretty cool idea is electric four wheel drive-- having a individual motor for each wheel can eliminate all the problems that differentials create, resulting in a vehicle that behaves like a hardcore locker-equipped jeep offroad, but still drives just fine on pavement.
The only maintenance you save on is engine maintenance and maybe extend the pad life some. The still have most of the drive train components a car does and tires+suspension. Also you have issues relating to the body and HVAC. So they do cost less to run but maintenance is still a thing and mechanics are always going to gouge the prices to keep their doors open.
Once batteries get better I don’t see why they couldn’t be comparable in every measurable way. One thing EVs are always going to lack is the fun of the powerband, shifting, and hearing the engine.
What drivetrain components are those? Full electric cars don’t need a transmission, so the “drivetrain” is basically the motor and a very basic single reduction gear differential, which requires no maintenance.
Tesla’s next car is the Model X, which is a mid-sized SUV-like car. I’m pretty sure it won’t have significant off-road capability, but otherwise it should have substantial cargo capacity and range. Still, it’ll basically be a luxury family hauler, rather than a utilitarian SUV.
Smaller companies are developing electric delivery vans, like this Ford Transit conversion. That will have plenty of cargo space and low operating costs. However, these don’t have really long ranges, and are typically meant for short-haul city deliveries.
So, there’s nothing that perfectly matches the capabilities of your Jeep. It’s probably not impossible to engineer such a thing, but it wouldn’t be cheap. Thus the reason Tesla is starting in the luxury segment, where an extra ten or twenty grand worth of batteries and technology development isn’t completely prohibitive.
It all comes down to energy density. If you require the batteries to be self-contained, then they almost certainly can’t compete with gasoline, as far as energy density goes: Gasoline gets a huge advantage by taking advantage of oxygen from the air. On the other hand, there’s no reason you can’t have air-breathing batteries which use the same advantage, and so in principle get comparable energy density. In practice, you wouldn’t even need that, since batteries and electric motors are typically much more efficient than internal combustion engines.
And that’s assuming that you’re even relying on chemical energy storage at all. There are no known fundamental limits on how much energy you can store in a capacitor, and capacitor technology is advancing at breakneck pace. I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if we see supercapacitors overtaking chemical batteries for the first full-utility electric vehicles.
Go to the extreme, and it might even be possible to make practical nuclear batteries.
Even though you phrase it one way, it seems like by your questions you are really asking can a electric SUV simulate my gas powered SUV, instead of can a electric SUV match the utility of a gas SUV.
The drive systems of a electric vehicle is different as well as the storage of fuel. As mentioned above there is the possibility to put a motor on each wheel instead of one main motor driving all. The potential is for better SUV utility is there if we don’t shoehorn it into what we have come to expect because of how a gas engine works.
I don’t see how they come up with that number; they don’t give any kind of cite for it. I know that the battery in the Tesla is about 1,000 pounds, and it stores enough energy to move the car 300 miles, but it’s only rated at an MPG equivalent of 80 mpg, rather than 300. The quote makes it sound like you’d need 15,000 pounds of batter to replace a 15 gallon tank, and that’s just not true.
Ethilrist:
A gasoline engine has poor efficiency in the conversion to mechanical energy (a great deal is lost as heat), while electric cars are much more efficient.
I do “X” and spend “Y” on my gasoline SUV. I was asking if it’s reasonable to do “X or more” and spend “Y or less” on an electric SUV, I don’t care what it sounds like of if every tire has a motor.
Certainly no fundamental limits in physics, and no physics or engineering limitations in building an off-road capable electric vehicle.
If Tesla wanted to, they could build the equivalent of the Grand Cherokee, that would get about 300 miles per charge, and probably be a bit more expensive to operate overall, but there is no problem with anything else.
You need battery technology to improve in storage capacity by a factor of 2, and come down in price by a factor of 2, in order to meet your range and price goals. That’s more than a few years away, but it’s certainly doable. Everything else is possible already. An EV with a motor driving each wheel independently would have tremendous advantages off-road - you could have fantastic suspension articulation without the need for axles, driveshafts, etc.
By the way, the Tesla is by no means small. Have you ever seen one in person? They have almost as much cargo capacity as my 2012 Grand Cherokee - 3rd row seats, even, which the GC doesn’t have.
I believe the OP is talking about a road trip. And 500 miles really isn’t that much for a day. At least for my wife and I.
I’m also interested in this. Some of us with SUV’s do really need them for the utility of off road driving. And I could see electric being better for that. I wonder how much real, real cold weather affects the battery? And a big hurdle is just providing cabin heat. You need a lot when it’s 20 below F.
That depends on the insulation of the cabin. Most cars nowadays have very little insulation, since there’s abundant heat available for free (it would otherwise be waste). It might make more sense to put significant insulation in an electric car used in a cold climate, though.
It looks like Tesla has the capability to meet the first objective: “1) Same size, weight, cargo capacity, off road and foul weather capability.”:
"Electric car company Tesla is planning to make a pickup truck, CEO Elon Musk said yesterday.
The truck will likely be the same type of vehicle as Ford’s F-Series pickup trucks. The Ford F-150 is the best-selling vehicle of any kind in the United States."